adminThe tournament, which has been running for past 25 years, has produced some of the best players in the country such as Warriors legend Peter Ndlovu, Washington Arubi, Willard Katsande and Ovidy Karuru.
Phiri acknowledged that there is a lot of talent in the country but conceded that there are no proper structures and systems to monitor the progress of the young players from grassroots until they graduate into national teams.
The former national team player attributed the challenges to lack of sponsorship for the national association and clubs which has resulted in most of the teams focusing on the first teams only.
“As a national association for now the problem is the lack of sponsorship, we don’t have the sponsors.
“It’s really difficult nowadays to say that a club has junior structures that are running concurrently with the senior team.
“Clubs claim that they have juniors but it’s not quite clear to say look this junior team comes from Dynamos, this junior team comes from CAPS United because of the financial constraints we have today.
“I think clubs are also finding it difficult in terms of sponsorship,” said Phiri. The Zifa board member said there was need to come up with policies to revive junior development programmes.
“We need to have a clear guidance where we are guided by the principles of the policies of the junior development programmes from Under-10, Under-12, Under-14, 16 and 18 up until to the national team, so that there is continuity.
“For Coca-Cola, I think they are doing a great thing. The thing is in Zimbabwe now you cannot find a sponsor to sponsor such type of competitions but today Coca-Cola have come in and said look we are here to sponsor.
Online Reporter